


Rescue

by zeldadestry



Category: Nikita (TV 2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: 100_women, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:19:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7053361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex follows her, because this is what she’s been waiting for, just one private moment to appear and state her own case: I’m awesome, you seem like you might be awesome, too, wanna be awesome together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> prompt 7, "rescue", for 100_women fanfic challenge

The dinner club’s not Alex’s usual type of place, but it’s valuable as a source of information. She’s not exactly welcome here, she’s the subject of too many rumors, but money is money and as long as she can pay they’ll always have a table for her. 

The menu’s too fancy for her tastes but Sean orders enough for both of them and she has fun stealing bites off of his plates, at least until she gets distracted by a beautiful dark haired woman who’s being dragged around the dance floor by some nasty looking guy. Alex stares at her new muse, while she sips the champagne Sean poured for her. “You see her?” she finally says. 

Sean takes a look. “Whoa. You have good taste, Udinov.” 

“You know her?” He shakes his head.

“Then what good are you?” she teases him.

They stay at the club longer than Alex intended, but she’s too tempted by the possibility of a chance to speak with her new discovery. Finally, shortly after midnight, the guy leaves to take a call. The woman’s alone, now, and like luck is starting to turn Alex’s way, she steps out onto an empty balcony. Alex follows her, because this is what she’s been waiting for, just one private moment to appear and state her own case: I’m awesome, you seem like you might be awesome, too, wanna be awesome together? “Hi,” Alex says, instead, walking over to the railing. 

The woman turns from her view of the city lights in the distance. “Hello.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take a break before this. Even someone as graceful as you can’t make a stiff like him look good.”

The woman lifts and lowers a shoulder, the subtlest of shrugs. “He tries.”

“I’m Alex, by the way.” She puts out her hand, and the woman shakes it, but the grip’s loose, like she doesn’t want to give anything away, and Alex hopes her disappointment doesn’t show on her face. Still, she’s not giving up yet. “Are you gonna make me guess your name?” 

“It’s Nikita.”

“Nikita,” Alex repeats. Now, only a step and a half away from each other, Nikita’s both more beautiful and somehow sadder to see, because there’s a set to her face that reveals, if Alex is honest, pain, and beyond that, having given up on being free of that pain. “So, what’s your story?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Come on, I don’t think they let anyone in the doors here if they’re not involved in one scandalous business operation or another.”

“Is that what you call it? Business?”

“Yeah.” Alex snickers. “I mean, what’s that joke on “The Simpsons”- the mobsters all gather for their “legitimate business associates” meetings or something? It’s like that, isn’t it? We may not be involved in anything we can brag about in public, but we still run a business.” 

“Like Stringer Bell taking those night classes?” 

Alex grins at her. “Exactly! But you know who I always liked best from “The Wire”?”

Nikita looks her in the eye for the first time and Alex feels the energy all the way down into her toes. “Omar Little?” she says.

“Right in one. Is he your favorite, too?”

“Yes.” 

Alex isn’t shy, not when she really wants something, but she’s still incredibly nervous when she lifts her hand and lets her fingertips stroke across Nikita’s chest, from one shoulder to the other, following the line of her dress. “You’re unbelievably beautiful, do you know that?” 

“Listen-”

“Yes?” Alex looks up into her eyes, waiting.

“I’m with Amanda.”

Alex blinks at her, like the whole picture’s gone out of focus. “Excuse me?”

“I just- I don’t want there to be a misunderstanding, here. I’m not- I can’t- ”

“Amanda?” Alex winces. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow,” Nikita says. “Someone told me, once, that you weren’t like the others.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t know. Depends on whether you follow the advice about seeing no evil or the one about keeping your enemies close.”

“In other words, you expected me to know as much as I can about Amanda because she tries to know everything about me?”

“I should go,” Nikita says, and gently draws Alex’s hand away from her shoulder.

“Sorry,” Alex says. She hadn’t even realized she was still holding on.

“No apology necessary.” She nods at Alex, a dismissal, and then walks back inside. 

By the time Alex returns to Sean’s side, Nikita’s already disappeared from the ballroom. “How’d it go?” Sean asks. Alex grabs a spoon and starts digging into his crème brulee. “Hey, help yourself, it’s not like I wasn’t just about to offer you a bite.” 

“Her name’s Nikita. It sounds like-” Alex swallows down the dessert, barely registering its sweetness. “It sounds like she’s Amanda’s girlfriend? I mean, willingly?” She reaches for the champagne and pours herself another glass. “Who would do that?” 

“Someone brave or stupid.” Sean taps his fingertips on the table. “I think I’ve heard the name.”

“Yeah? Do you know anything about her?” Sean shakes his head. “Nothing?”

“I’ll find out what I can,” Sean says, and puts an arm around her. 

“Thanks,” she says, and rests her head on his shoulder.

 

The next morning she’s barely started on her first cup of coffee when Sean appears and tells her, “I’ve got your intel.” 

“Huh?”

“So eloquent.”

She flips him off and reaches for the manila folder he’s carrying. “Nikita? Is that what you mean?”

“No, no, no,” he chides her, putting the folder down in front of her. “First, we talk shop.” He opens the folder and points to the blueprint on the first page. “As I was saying at our previous meeting, we now know what Gogol is storing in this location. The question is how do we best retrieve it?”

“You know about my femme fatale!” Alex lunges at him, tickling his sides. “Tell me!”

“You’re a spoiled brat, Udinov!” Sean tussles with her until he’s got the side of her face pressed down against the table and her arms pinned behind her back. “Done playing?” 

“You are so fuckin mean.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you keep telling me.” 

She grinds her heel down on his toes until he lets her go. After she turns around, she gets her fists up again. “Round two?” 

“Work first, then you get what you want. You know the rules.”

“Fine,” she rolls her eyes.

 

After they’ve finished outlining their plan and its various contingencies, Alex holds out her hands like a kid asking for candy. “Gimme.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not gonna like it.”

“Oh.” Alex lets her hands rest in her lap, instead.

“What I hear is that she’s a kid who grew up in the foster care system until she ran away at age thirteen. She spent two years on the streets, during which time she picked up a bad drug habit. Apparently Amanda somehow found out about her and took her in, helped her rehab.”

“So she’s clean, now?”

“That’s what they say.”

“And what was the upside? I mean, what did Amanda want with her?”

Sean clears his throat. “Probably the same thing you did.”

“Excuse me? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Sean shrugs but Alex can’t ignore the flush on his face. “Are you seriously telling me that Amanda took a child off the streets just so she could get her into her bed? Because that’s fucking sick. That’s horrible.”

“Alex-” Sean sighs. “We deal with some of the worst scumbags on this planet. How can they keep surprising you?”

“Because not all crimes are equal. I know that, and I know you do, too, or you would never have agreed to work with me in the first place.” 

 

She’s on edge, when she gets in bed that night, can’t stop thinking about Nikita, despite what she knows now. It makes her feel sick, evil, even, wanting someone who has gone through all of that shit, shit she so narrowly escaped herself. 

“You deserve so much better,” she whispers into the dark, like saying it out loud could somehow make it real. “I’m gonna do everything I can to help you. And I won’t care if you hate me for it, as long as I know you’re happier. Free.” 

 

“My name’s Michael.” He takes the chair she offers but shakes his head when she gestures to the vodka on the sidebar. “I hear you’ve been asking questions about Nikita.”

“I want to know why she stays with Amanda.”

Michael scoffs at her. “Not really any of your business.”

“I just- from what I’ve heard, no one should have to stay with someone who uses them, exploits them.”

“And- even if it’s true- why do you care? What do you want from her?”

“Nothing. Honestly, nothing. I only want to help. If there’s anything I can do, I wish you’d tell me.” 

Michael stares at her. “I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s a chip. Amanda holds the switch. If Nikita ever tries to leave, boom, she’s dead.”

“A kill chip? That’s really possible?”

“Unfortunately.”

“But it can be removed, right?”

“Not easily.” Michael drags his thumb over his jaw. “But I know someone who can do it.”

“For too steep a price, I assume.”

Michael shrugs. “Not necessarily. Some of Amanda’s people stay with her out of loyalty, some because it seems like a fair trade, they’re getting back from her what they want, but some people, people with special skills, people who didn’t sign up for her kind of organization, they’re there by force. And I know someone who has the skills, and would do it because it would help Nikita.”

“That’s great.”

“Potentially. The issue is that we would need to extract him.”

This is it. Ari Tasarov has always been her hidden back up plan. If she uses him, now, Amanda will know, he’ll have to flee, Alex will never again have this bonus at her disposal. Sean will understand. Ryan will be disappointed, but he too will understand. And someday- she’ll never regret it, she’s sure of that, but this is a decision she’s making on instinct, and she knows damn well that anyone looking on from the outside would call her a fucking idiot. On the other hand, they all have such short time spans in this job. Ari could disappear tomorrow and the fact that he was ever an asset would be immaterial, squandered. “I can help you with that.”

 

She doesn’t hear from Michael until a month after Birkhoff’s escape. “You couldn’t text?” she complains, when she finally sees him. “Just a 'hey, it’s all good,' is that asking too much?”

“Hey, it’s all good,” he says, completely deadpan. 

“Really, asshole?”

“Really.” 

“She’s ok?”

“She’s free. She’s great.”

“Good.” Alex puts out her hand but he surprises her when he takes it and pulls her into a hug.

“You have no idea how grateful I am,” he murmurs. 

 

Alex steps out of her bathroom, tired, but fresh from her shower. She’s still drying her hair and pulls up short when she sees Nikita standing at the foot of her bed. “Wow,” she says, the towel falling from her hand. “It’s good to see you but I need to have one hell of a talk with my security team.” 

Nikita makes no indication that she appreciates the joke. “What do you want?”

Alex is just about to spit out, excuse me, you’re the one who broke into my home, so I should be asking you that question, when she recognizes Nikita’s defensive posture and sympathy takes precedent over her temper. “How are you?” she asks, daring to step forward and reach out a hand. “Are you ok?”

Nikita stares at her hand like it’s diseased and Alex lowers it. “What the fuck do you want from me?” 

Alex gets it, then, and hates herself for not recognizing this immediately. “I don’t want anything,” she says, honest as she can. “I just-”

“Because I don’t owe you anything!” Nikita interrupts. “I didn’t ask you to do it, no one asked you to do it, so- I don’t owe you anything,” she repeats. 

“You’re right,” Alex says, “you don’t.”

“Alex?” That’s Sean, knocking at the door. “There’s been a perimeter breach-”

“I’m fine, Sean,” Alex says. She walks past Nikita and opens the door a sliver. “I have a visitor.” She mouths Nikita’s name and Sean raises his eyebrows in reply. Alex turns her head to look back over her shoulder. The window’s open and Nikita’s gone. “That is to say- I had a visitor.” 

Sean’s brow furrows. “We have got to talk to your security team.”

Alex sighs and opens the door all the way to let her friend in. “She didn’t even say thank you.”

“I’m sorry.” Sean sits down in one of the armchairs. 

Alex picks up her towel again and wraps it around her head. Then she sits down across from him. “It’s ok. I did it for her, not for myself.” Sean holds out his hand and Alex takes it. “I just hope she’s ok. Maybe even better than that, happy, eventually, you know? I mean, that’s got to be possible for somebody, right?

Sean kisses the back of her hand, a little touch of comfort. “Yeah,” he echoes. “It should be possible for somebody.” 

 

When she started all of this, it felt like a way to help clean her conscience. She had no control over where her family’s money came from but, with her knowledge and position, she could be useful to those attempting to stop the corrupt.

She started this with good intentions, but now she wonders if all she’s doing is locking herself into this system, making it so she may never be able to get out.

“I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” Alex tells Ryan at their next meeting.

“Alright,” Ryan says. 

“I’m letting go of all of this. I’m keeping the money I made in the market, yeah, because even if the principle wasn’t clean when I started, everything I’ve earned since then has been fair, honest.”

“I understand.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to try and convince me that I can do more good like this than I ever could back in the real world?”

“You think I can’t see the wear this puts on you? You think it doesn’t take its toll on me, too, hell, on all of us?”

“Shit, when you put it like that- makes me feel even more like I’m abandoning you.”

Ryan smiles at her. “Would it help if I told you I’ve been hoping for this day for a long time?”

“Really?”

“Promise.”

“Why?”

“Because I can see that you’re ready to start over again.” Alex nods. “Rest assured, if you’re willing to transfer the problematic assets over to us, we know how to deal with them.”

“Sean will contact you in a few days.”

He bends down to kiss her cheek and it feels like a good bye.

 

She’s in Malibu, of all places, when it happens. She steps out the front door of the place she’s renting, one afternoon, and Nikita’s there, sitting on the lip of the decorative fountain, like she’s got all the time in the world. “What are you doing here?” Alex says, walking towards her. Nikita looks transformed since Alex last saw her, the lines of her body no longer so tense. She’s dressed in a silky white blouse, dark blue jeans, and scuffed combat boots, ready for anything, kicking ass and taking names, while Alex stands there feeling like a chump in her three inch heels and with a ten thousand dollar bag on her arm. Somehow, though, that feeling of being less than doesn’t stop her from saying, “It’s good to see you,” and holding out her hand. 

Nikita takes off her sunglasses and hooks them over the vee of her shirt. She clasps Alex’s hand, gives a little tug. “Sit down with me?” Alex perches right next to her, their outer thighs brushing. Somehow she knows neither of them need personal space right now. “Congratulations on quitting the business,” Nikita says.

“Thanks.”

“Looks like the life of leisure suits you.” Nikita winks at her.

“Of course- the life of an international double agent was hell on the skin.”

“Too true.” They sit in silence until Nikita speaks again. “How does it feel to be out?” 

“Good, mostly. But- I also don’t know what I’m doing with myself most of the time.”

Nikita nods. “I get that.”

“Is it like that for you?” 

Nikita shrugs. “It was a job. I thought of it as a job. I hated it, though, both for what it was and because of that chip. My options were bad.” She looks down at her hands. “I could be free and dead or I could work for her and stay alive. Some days I’m not sure I made the right choice.”

“You did, I know you did.”

Nikita looks at Alex and her eyes are wet. “You’re kind to say so. You’ve got a good heart. I understand now why you wanted to help me and I’m sorry that- I’m sorry that I didn’t say thank you, before.” 

“Don’t be sorry, please. I understand, I really do. You had to be smart. You had to protect yourself because you didn’t know me. You had to be sure that I didn’t have an ulterior motive, that I didn’t do it out of selfishness.”

“Well, I know now.”

“Did you- did you come all this way just to talk to me?”

“That and because I’ve always wanted to learn how to surf.”

Alex laughs. “Really? Because I know a guy. He’ll give us lessons.”

“Awesome,” Nikita says.

Alex shakes her head in wonder. “You amaze me.”

“Thanks.” Nikita picks up Alex’s hand and draws it to her own heart. “And, you know-” She pauses, smiles. “Same to you, babe. Same to you.”


End file.
